Owners Of Mall Aim Far Gardens Mall Intended To Be `Super-regional`

March 31, 1987|By MARCIA H. POUNDS, Business Writer

The Gardens Mall now under construction in Palm Beach Gardens will be a ``super-regional`` shopping mall expected to do $400 million in annual retail sales and eventually employ 3,000 full and part-time workers.

At a press conference Monday announcing the mall plans, developer Sidney Forbes said such an economic impact will be the result of ``five of the country`s strongest department stores under one roof.``

Macy`s, Burdines and Sears have signed commitments as anchors for the first phase of the mall, scheduled for opening in October 1988. Bloomingdale`s and Saks will be added in the second phase of the mall in 1990, according to Forbes-Cohen Properties.

Forbes said the mall, at PGA Boulevard and Alternate A1A, ``will have a tremendous outreach well beyond our trading area.`` The Palm Beach Gardens mall, which also will contain 200 specialty shops and restaurants, will attract shoppers from as far north as Vero Beach and as far south as Hypoluxo, he said.

Shoppers in southern Palm Beach County are more likely to go to Town Center in Boca Raton, which last year completed an expansion that included Bloomingdale`s, Saks and Lord & Taylor. ``But Town Center doesn`t have Macy`s,`` Forbes said.

Ray Treigers, senior vice president of R.H. Macy`s in New York, said Macy`s still intends to open a store in the Boynton Beach Mall in 1989, about a year after completing its store in The Gardens and in a proposed mall in Plantation in Broward County.

When completed, the 1.35 million-square-foot Gardens Mall ``will be very close to the largest mall in the state,`` said Rebecca L. Maccardini, director of operations for Forbes-Cohen. Maccardini said the developers would wait until the mall was finished to claim that title.

Forbes said the mall will cost $150 million to build. He declined to say what his firm is charging to lease space in the mall, explaining that it ranges widely according to space leased and location.

The mall will be on 100 acres of a 450-acre development planned by Foundation Land Co., the Palm Beach Gardens company that manages the assets of late billionaire John D. MacArthur. A hotel or office building and residential development is also planned for the site. Russ Bielenberg, general manager of Foundation Land, said there were ``no immediate plans`` for development of remaining acreage at the site.

Forbes-Cohen has a 99-year lease on 100 acres for which it owes fixed payments tied to the property`s value. Bielenberg said Foundation Land will also receive a certain percentage of the gross profits from the mall. Foundation Land can only hold passive real estate investments to keep its tax- exempt status under the law; it is in the process of selling its active businesses.